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Then, when she had calmed down, he offered to move the her Ford Fiesta to a safer spot a bit further up the road.

She allowed him to do so and could only watch as he drove the car up the road - and kept on driving.

The stolen vehicle was new driver Arali McGrath's first car

Arali, aged 20, said: “I just couldn’t believe it. He was so nice. He really was.

“I was in so much shock I was like a vegetable. The other people with me had to call the police.”

The drama happened on the afternoon of Sunday, September 18, as Arali was driving in the city’s Jewellery Quarter to meet her boyfriend, Luke, aged 21 and some of his friends. They were intending to go on to a stag do.

The accident happened in George Street, leaving new driver Arali, who passed her driving test in May, badly shocked, but unhurt.

She said: “There was a dent in the car, like someone had really punched the headlights. It wasn’t horrendous, it was drivable.”

“I was crying and shaking. I’d only passed my test in May and this was the first crash I’d ever had.”

She said the Good Samaritan had been walking down the street when he came to the rescue.

“He was such a gentleman,” she said. “He came over to me and got me out of my car and hugged me.

“He was around 30. He had a real Brummie accent. He was about 6ft 1 with scruffy ginger hair. He kept calling me ‘darling’. He was so nice.”

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Four other people went to Arali’s aid, one giving her a bottle of water.

The man offered to move her car as it was blocking the road, but a woman who was there said Arali should move it.

Arali said the man then protested.

“He said I was in no fit state to drive. He told me that he lived in a flat just up the road. He pointed down the road and said ‘I’ll just park it up there, darling’.”

Arali thanked him and watched as he stubbed out his cigarette and got into the driver’s seat of her Ford Fiesta. She then watched as he drove the car up the road - and disappeared.

“The woman said, ‘he’s stolen your car’. I just couldn’t believe it.

The crash and theft has unnerved Arali

Not only was Arali’s car gone but also her handbag, her purse, a six-pack of beer she was taking to the stag do and presents she had just bought her boyfriend while on holiday in Tenerife.

The car itself was special to Arali.

“I passed my driving test in May thinking that I wouldn’t get a car for a few years because I needed to save up some money. My dad had helped me to get this car. It’s such a disappointment - I didn’t want to tell him.”

Police found the car abandoned in Smethwick two days later, minus all the property which had been inside.

Arali wants the man who stole her car caught

Arali said the police suspected that the vehicle may have been used in another crime and would need to carry out forensic tests.

She expects to get the vehicle back eventually but the whole episode has unnerved her.

“It was such a surreal experience,” she said. These sort of things make you feel ‘oh my goodness, they could have driven off the car with me inside it’. It’s shaken me up.”

The stolen car

A West Midlands Police spokesman said: "We received a report that the car was stolen and we can confirm that it was subsequently involved in another crime. It is being held for forensics."